The top cop for the South Okanagan-Similkameen says a rise in violent crime year over year in the region is likely coming from within the Okanagan Correctional Centre.
Non-domestic violent crime in the region grew 18 per cent in the first quarter of 2018 over the same period the year before, an increase of about 25 incidents. However, much of that appeared to come from Oliver, which saw 24 more incidents of violent crime in Q1 2018 over the year previous.
Meanwhile, the rate of non-domestic violent crime throughout the region saw less dramatic changes, both positive and negative. The rate of police-reported domestic violence has dropped year over year by 22 per cent, but remained flat over the final three months of 2017.
Related: Violent crime rises 18 per cent in South Okanagan
Supt. Ted De Jager, the RCMP’s regional detachment commander, said that rise is most likely coming from within the jail, which had only opened with gradual intake early last year.
“Not from outside; it’s inside. Things that are happening inside still get reported from police. So people aren’t being released from OCC and committing violent crime. They’re going home,” he said, adding incidents aren’t entirely dealt with internally.
“They do handle their own investigations as well, internally. … But we do investigate in those files. And again, not everybody’s co-operative, so it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a major investigtion. In fact, the majority of them are not.”
Related: OCC inmates face more violence than nearly any other jail
De Jager noted violent crime includes anything from assault with a weapon, causing bodily harm or aggravated assault down to uttering threats, and the majority of those incidents are at the lower level.
He also sought to clarify that violent crime is about four per cent of crime in Penticton, saying it isn’t something most people need to worry about when it comes to their own personal safety.
“It’s affecting people in that lifestyle, or known offenders (domestic violence),” De Jager said. “Things like bar fights and alcohol-fuelled. So if you’re not in that lifestyle. If you are not a violent person when you drink. Then you’re probably not going to be involved in a violent crime.”
Related: Another plea from Penticton’s top cop to lock car doors
He did note that people should be worried about when violent crime occurs, even if they aren’t affected by it.
“But we need to make sure that we have people looking out for each other to prevent those sort of random things from happening, which are even astronomically lower percentage of the violent crime that we have,” he said.
“We’re not talking homicides and robberies, here. We’re talking very low levels of violent crime. Again, not to say that that doesn’t happen, because clearly we had three homicides in Penticton last year. Three in Penticton, four in our detachment area,” he said.
“This isn’t some random person going out and hurting somebody in any of those (homicide) cases.”
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Dustin Godfrey | Reporter
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